Hair The Colour of Love
by Generation Nothing
Summary: Becoming a singing sensation at age nineteen and making out with a red haired girl was not what I was planning to do at age twelve. Well, the singing was. The girl part...er...not exactly.
1. Chapter 1

"You can't…do this!" My manager told me, lightly gripping my shoulders. "Tori, youralbum comes out_ tomorrow._ You need to stick with the schedule and promote it, go on talk shows. Bring in new fans and even perform live!"

"I've done a few promotions already! It's just one small break, Arnold. Just a few weeks. Two at most," I say, taking his hands off of me. Arnold and I had been discussing a promotion tour when I asked if I could have a break before doing so. That was about fifteen minutes go. He has been giving me a lecture ever since. My eyebrows draw together as I frown slightly. I'd been in the studio for the past year. Jotting down lyrics and recording and then adding music to it or taking parts out was exhausting. I was only nineteen years old. Couldn't Arnold see that I was tired and deserved a period of rest? "_Please?_"

Arnold bites his lip and looks away from me, running a hand through his slicked back orange hair. It probably wasn't the best idea because now his hand is full of oil. Arnold looks at his hand with disgust before wiping it on his blazer jacket. His foot taps loudly as he thinks.

"…Just a few weeks, right? No more than maybe two or three?" He says slowly, making sure that we're on the same page and I'm not tricking him into something.

"Yes, yes." I say smiling. I nod my head so much and so hard that it hurts when I stop.

He sighs, "Then I suppose that you could—".

Arnold doesn't get to finish his sentence because I tackle him in a hug and drown him in "Thank-You's!". Arnold's arms tentatively wrap around my body as if he's unfamiliar with the feeling of a hug. I wonder how often he receives hugs or any signs of affection. I make a mental note to hug him more often.

He awkwardly ruffles my hair and then pulls away with a small smile on his face.

"It's about two hours until the studio closes up. Maybe you can start your little vacation sooner and go home early," Arnold says softly. Then he checks his watch and his eyebrows shoot up.

"What's wrong?" I ask, putting on my shoulder bag.

"My girlfriend's flight comes in in twenty minutes. I should get going too."

And before I know it we're both saying goodbyes in a parking lot and heading our separate ways. Well, he's driving. I'm taking the bus.

I got my driver's license early this year and sometimes I do drive myself around. Though I find myself enjoying observing the weird things people do on buses. Like right now, a boy in front of me is trying to stick his tongue to his nose while balancing an empty plastic cup on the side of his foot. To my left, a grandmother is wearing unfitting wrestling apparel. I try not to stare for too long.

The bus comes to a halt and picks up people from another stop. One person catches my eye as they enter—a girl my age with the colour of love for her hair. She starts a conversation with the bus driver about something recent on some TV show. The girl seems relatively normal, so I focus on the boy with the cup again. He's now trying to balance a pencil on the bridge of his nose.

The rest of the bus ride is fairly boring. People pile in and out; some loud and others quiet. I see new faces that fade quickly in my mind because they did not stand out. I can remember what Arnold had told me when I went into an audition once: If you want to be anything to them and have them remember you, you need to be really really good or so bad that they want to throw a spicy sauce in your face. Every single person in the room competing against me for the role seemed to be set on leaving a mark. I can't help but believe that if you don't leave a mark somewhere, you won't be remembered. Because that's how history made everything out to be. I highly doubt that in one hundred years everyone will remember our every day doctors or policemen. I don't know if I'm making sense or not, but these are my thoughts so let me ramble, okay?

By the time we get to the last stop, my stop, the bus is still a little full, so it takes some time for everyone to get out. I'm among the last to get out. I start the small walk home, but then I hear someone groan and something hit the floor. My head turns in the direction to see the redheaded girl who's kneeling down trying to pick up some of the things that had escaped her backpack and were spewed about the sidewalk. No one else had bothered to help her. I quickly walked back and began collecting her papers.

"Thanks," she says, not meeting my eyes. I look down at a bundle of papers I'm holding and realize it's a script. Maybe she's an underground actress or is into theater. It would sort of explain why her hair was red if she wanted to stand out during auditions. I wince. I'm supposed to be on vacation, not over-analyzing people. I hand it to her.

"Yeah." I mumble. "No biggie."

She finally looks up at me and the first thing I notice (besides her hair) are her eyes. They're big and brown and her eyelashes are thick with mascara. But her eyes are still pretty. When I look into her eyes I feel like I know her from somewhere. Maybe I had seen her at an audition. Or maybe a talent show or a singing gig I did—

"I had a friend who used to say no biggie a lot. But she did it with a goofy smile and voice and you did it normally. She moved away though and I don't know where she is now, we sort of lost touch. But it's weird that you both say no biggie, that's crazy!" She said with a completely straight face.

I blinked.

"A lot of people say no biggie, sorry?" I say. A smile melts onto my face and I don't know why. There's something about her that makes me want to smile.

"It's okay. My brother had a friend who used to say 'No biggie' too. But he got arrested. I haven't seen him much, either." She plays with the tips of her hair and looks around with her mouth open. "Um, where are we?"

"Washington and Third. Why?" I ask. Did she get off at the wrong stop?

"I think I got off at the wrong stop." Nailed it.

Her eyebrows draw together and she starts to breathe shakily. "Does the bus come back around or is it done for today?"

"It's done, I think."

"Dang it!"

"Hey, it's okay. Just call a friend and have them pick you up. I could even stay with you if you don't want to be alone. I wouldn't want to be alone either, it's getting dark."

It's silent between us. She rocks back and forth on her feet and wrinkles her nose.

"Idromphoninmehsoup…" She mumbled, looking ashamed.

"I'm sorry, what?"

She stamps her foot as she blurts out, "I dropped my phone in my soup to see if it would float! I was watching _Drake & Josh _and Drake said it didn't float but I wanted to see if he was lying…he wasn't."

At first I'm not sure how to react, but a laugh emits from my lips before I can stop it. I cover my mouth as I do so.

She stares at me like she doesn't know why I'm laughing and shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. My laughter calms down eventually.

"Come on, there's a public phone a street or two down. I'd let you use my phone but I accidentally left it at home today. There's also a small coffee place extremely close. We could stop there after?" I offer. Hey, if I'm going on vacation I might as well enjoy it and have a friend to spend it with. She agrees and it only takes a few minutes to get to the public phone.

She makes the phone call and then we head down to the shop. She picks a spot to sit at while I order. When they ask for our names, I tell them mine, but realize I never got hers. I quickly walk back to the table.

"Hey, I never really got your name?" She blinks up at me.

"Oh, my name is Cat." I freeze. "Like the animal. It's kind of perfect for me because I love cats." She giggles. "It kind of just sounded like I said I love myself." Cat giggles even more at herself.

It all makes sense to me though. How could I not see it before? Her red hair, her random stories and mention of her brother, her eyes and voice should have signaled to me who she was. I'd gone to school with her for one year and I couldn't even remember her that well. I felt terrible.

She's still giggling when I leave the table to pick up our drinks. I sit down in the booth across from her and slide her the drink.

"So, Cat…" I start off awkwardly. Cat takes a sip of her coffee and bounces her back against the soft cushion of the booth.

"So," Cat laughed, "You've bought me a drink. Now fill me up on what's happened in the past two years to Tori Vega. You completely vanished off the face of Google Maps and your Slap page hasn't had a update in a year."

I almost choke as I sputter out, "How did you know it was me?"

Cat responds in less than a heartbeat and as if the answer was obvious. "Cheekbones, Tori. Dead giveaway."

A blush creeps onto my face and my hands fly to my cheeks. I answer her question. "I've been in a few plays and a TV show or two. I'm leaning more towards singing right now though. I actually have my first album coming out tomorrow."

Cat immediately claps and says in a sing-song tone, "Tori's gonna be famous, Tori's gonna be famous!" Several people look over in our direction and give us rude stares.

"Cat," I say, taking a hold of one hand to stop her from clapping again. It's surprisingly softer than what I would imagine. I brush my thumb over the top of her hand but she doesn't seem to notice.

"Oops, that was loud, wasn't it?" I nod. "Anyway, that is so cool Tori! I'll be the first one to buy it."

I don't want to point out that I haven't told her the name of the album yet.

She changes the subject to boys and then to jobs and so on and so forth. I'd like to say that I was still listening to her but that would be a lie. I couldn't concentrate on what she was talking about after the fifth subject change (how does a person go from stuffed animals to gross topics that I will not repeat here in .5 seconds?).

A car pulls into a spot a window away from us and honks its horn. Cat is caught off guard and jumps.

"Oh, that's for me. It was nice talking to you, Tori. We should do it again and hang out like we did in high school. It's so weird saying that. Soon, I'll be like forty and being all, 'Back in my day, in high school' and it will seem like such a long time ago because it was! Anyway, I'll give you my num…oh. I don't have a phone anymore. I always seem to forget. "

"It's okay, I can give you mine." I flip over the receipt and look for a pen in my purse. I scribble down various forms to contact me and hand it to her.

"Thanks again for helping with my papers and the phone." Cat stated. I smile and shrug, following her out the door. I watch as she gets in the car and drives off.

"No biggie." I say.

I start my walk home with a goofy smile on my face.

* * *

**And here is my first ever Cori fanfic. This will not at all be even close to Gigantic. **

**Reviews=inspiration  
**

**Inspiration makes me write chapters better and faster.  
**

**Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

You know how you get those next day jitters the night before the first day of school, or maybe your first day of work? That's exactly what I have now.

After I'd left Cat at the coffee shop, I'd gone home and fixed myself some microwaveable macaroni and cheese—the finest of foods for an 'up and coming pop star'—watched some TV and went straight to bed around ten. Then, it hit me that my album was going to drop in two hours and I suddenly had a lot of nervous energy. I've been fidgeting around in my bed for the past hour not really doing anything.

My mind wanders to Cat for some odd reason, and I wonder what she's doing right now. She could be asleep or having a sleepless night like me. From various sleepovers I used to have with the girl, I remember that she had always had problems hitting the sack due to always being too energetic. A smile carves its way onto my face as I remember spending time with Cat at Hollywood Arts along with everyone else. I rarely keep in touch with Andre and Beck, usually just a random Skype chat whenever there's a birthday or gig here and then. I wonder if Cat keeps in touch with everyone, even Jade.

Before I know it, I've completely erased myself from reality and in my dreams I see only the calm ocean.

* * *

Text messages are a pretty cool thing, don't get me wrong. You can get a message across so someone far away without seeing their face or hearing their voice. Phones have come a long way and that's awesome.

What's not awesome is receiving text messages at four o'clock in the morning.

I pull myself out of my bed and practically drag myself to the opposite side of the room. I always put it on the dresser so it won't distract me when I'm trying to sleep, but now I'm starting to regret that decision. The dresser seemed a million miles away. My phone buzzed again, again, and again. Whoever this was, the situation better be freaking important.

I enter my pass code to see only messages that an unidentified number had spammed me with. I scrolled through them.

3:45 am- Is this Tori's phone?

3:51 am- Hello? Is anybody home? :)

3:54 am- I wonder if food items feel like they have homes.

3:56 am- But they get eaten a lot so I guess they feel betrayed and closed in. Bummer for them.

4:00 am- Tori?

4:10 am- I'm hungry.

The bright light stings my eyes and I yawn as I read two other messages sent, one with over three smiley faces sticking on the end of it. From the complete random subject changes and texts at this ungodly hour, I'm assuming it's Cat. I text her back to confirm so and she enthusiastically responds yes (with multiple exclamation points, which I found painful to look at). I ask why she had to text me at four in the morning and she said that she didn't have a good answer. I say 'okay?' and then set my phone down, thinking the conversation is over.

I crawl back into bed and stuff my face back in the pillow. I breathe deeply into it and close my eyes. I feel relaxed and comfortable, ready to drift to sleep when—

_Give a little time to me, we'll burn this out,_

_We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,_

_And all I want is the taste that your lips allow_

_My my, my my, give me love_

Are. You. Kidding. Me.

Grumbling, I stumble out of bed and head towards my phone, which is currently blaring Ed Sheeran at unbearable volume for four in the morning. I pick it up, not caring to check whom it is because I already know who.

"What?" I growl into the phone. You can't blame me. I only went to bed a few hours ago.

"Oh," Cat says from the other end, "Is this a bad time?" she giggles.

"Oh, no," I say sarcastically, "It's only four-thirty. This is the perfect time to have a conversation." I think she hears the malice in my voice because she stops giggling immediately and apologises repeatedly, so much that I barely have any room to squeeze in an 'It's okay' (because it really was something silly to get mad over, especially when I knew Cat wasn't trying to do any harm) but I eventually do.

"So Cat," I say softly, "Not to be rude or anything, why _are_ you calling me?"

"Well I was going to go to sleep but then I realized that your album was coming out so I stayed up all night long until it came out. Then, I spent like two hours listening to the songs on repeat and all of them reminded me of you and then I remembered that you _sang_ them and I wanted to congratulate you on the album because it's really good and I remembered I had your phone number and I texted you on my roommate's phone and you texted back but then you stopped and I realised I still hadn't congratulated you and that I also wanted pancakes. Congratulations, Tori!" By the end, she's breathless but I can feel her happiness for me through the phone. I smile and I know she's smiling, too.

"Thanks, Cat." I tell her. It's silent for a moment. My stomach makes an awkward gurgling sound. "Hey," I interrupt the silence, "Pancakes sound kind of good right now. Meet me at Charlie's Pancake Factory in fifteen minutes?"

"Kay kay." She breathes into the phone. I want to ask her if she keeps in touch with anyone from our old group, but before I'm able to form the first word she's gone.

I run a hand through my hair. I glance at my jeans from yesterday hanging over a chair in the corner of the room. Shrugging, I grab some cash and head out the door in my lollipop pajamas.

* * *

I want to marry a pancake and have little adorable pancake children.

If you've never had Charlie's Pancakes, it's time to book your little tush down to L.A this instant and have some _now_. It's like a fluffy party in your mouth.

Cat and I are seated in a blue booth in the corner of the 24-Hour-Restaurant munching away happily on the heavenly food and just enjoying each other's company. The keep in touch question of mine is momentarily forgotten as we ask each other about other things and I learn a little bit more about her.  
Cat's studying acting at a local college and has been in two plays within the last four months and has an agent and a manager. She was dating a person named Sam up until about five months ago when she found out Sam was seeing someone from one of the casts behind her back. I don't know what to tell her other than "I'm sorry," and Cat shrugs it off, saying how she never felt comfortable with Sam anyway, but her eyes water slightly. I don't question her why about the subject.

I share a story about a boy named Drew who I'd dated for a while before he dumped me for no reason, but I don't think I make her feel any better because she excuses herself to use the restroom and doesn't return until after I've finished my pancakes.

Cat puts on a smile as she eats her food and gives a story about an embarrassing audition and I watch and listen intently. Err, I try to. For some reason beyond me, I my eyes flicker to her lips, which are curled around her fork, almost sucking it. She scrapes remnants of whipped cream off her plate with her finger and her small, pink tongue tentatively licks the cream off. Cat pauses when she notices me staring and blushes, proceeding to wipe the rest off herself with a napkin.

Her eyebrows fly up. "Sorry, do you find that gross? My parents used to tell me not to do it in public, but I can't help it." She smiles nervously at me.

I shake my head. "No, no, it's fine." I stutter out. I don't understand what made me stare. Maybe it was the colour of her lips, which seem to be redder than they were yesterday. Not that I was looking at her lips yesterday, either. It's just something I noticed. I cringe when I notice I'm trying to cover up the reasoning for my thoughts.

Please ignore me.

A waiter with an overwhelming amount of acne brings us our bill and I try to hand him the ball of cash I'd kept in my pajama pocket.

Cat bats my hand a way and holds out a twenty-dollar bill for the guy (his nametag says 'Kip') to take.

"I woke you up early, the least I can do is pay." Cat says, batting her eyelashes at me. I hate it when she does that to me. I huff, stuffing the cash back into my pocket. Kip takes the bill, leaves our receipt and swiftly walks away. Involuntarily, I yawn, feeling sleep trying to control me.

We walk out of Charlie's Pancake Factory together and I wait for a car to pick Cat up. It's around six now and the sky's starting to get brighter and I can see her better. Her dimples are slightly showing, which means she's smiling a little. Cat gives a little hum before telling me, "This was nice, Tor. Thanks for getting pancakes with me."

A sleek black car pulls into the parking lot and honks at us. Cat's ride.

She turns towards me and opens her arms. I step into her and my arms wrap around her. She's really short so I have to bend a little, but she's warm and soft and that makes up for it. She feels like home. Cat's hand rubs against my back as she whispers in my ear, "This really was nice, Tori." And she hugs me for a little more, swaying from side to side. I don't realise that I'm halfway asleep until my body loses control of itself and my full body weight leans into her.

"Oh, God, Tori!"

**The first few chapters are going to be a little boring (and short), but, you know, they have to fall in love and stuff and that takes some time. And just for future reference, YES, this is a Cori ROMANCE, not a Cori friendship. **

**If you have any feedback, if you could kindly drop it off in that little box down there that would make my day. **


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